Crews battling a deadly wildfire burning well into its second week near California’s Big Sur coast have carved buffer lines around a quarter of its perimeter, steering flames more deeply into the forest and away from populated areas, officials said on Wednesday.
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Nine structures, including four homes, have been destroyed, fire officials said.
A bulldozer operator was also killed on the fire lines during a rollover accident. The fire has burned 46 square miles and is 84 percent contained.
The grass fire ignited Tuesday afternoon and quickly spread, prompting the evacuation of an RV and tent campground off Highway 128 near Lake Berryessa and the Napa Valley.
Officials say more than 5,400 firefighters from across California are fighting the fire in steep terrain that is considered some of the most extreme in the United States.
Engine 21 is usually stationed in Taft, but last Friday, KCFD says it was sent to help combat the Soberanes Fire as part of a five engine strike team.
With the fire now largely hemmed in on its northern flank, closest to communities that were threatened, the blaze is moving primarily in a southeasterly direction deeper into the Los Padres National Forest, Scott said.
Officials are reporting progress containing two large wildfires pushed by dry winds through remote rangeland and rugged mountain canyons in northwestern Nevada.
Firefighters in recent days have gotten an upper hand in the wildfire’s hard-to-reach areas by lighting fires from the containment boundaries toward the advancing flames.
About 50 miles north, a wildfire in the scenic Poodle Mountain Wilderness Study Area has burned almost 8 square miles.
Fire officials say some structures have been lost, but they are still working to determine how many and what type.
Dave Ulibarri with Salt Lake County’s Unified Fire Authority said the blaze started early Wednesday on a mountainside above the city of Draper and spread quickly through dry grass and brush.
Residents have been allowed to return to their residences after a wildfire prompted the evacuation of about two dozen homes in central Washington.
A fire spokesman, Trooper Jeff Sevigney, says the blaze about 7 miles north of Moses Lake burned less land than initially thought but destroyed two homes and six outbuildings. But the annual number of large wildfires in the American West has increased by more than 75 percent, from roughly 140 fires in the 1980s to 250 fires in the 2000s, the Union of Concerned Scientists reported in 2014.
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A new wildfire blew up in northwest Wyoming, destroying some buildings and forcing evacuations in a mostly rural area.
